National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo.  It began in 1999 and has grown wildly popular.  Back in 1999 my friend Becky told me about it. We were seniors in high school at the time.  I thought it sounded interesting, but didn’t act on it.

The idea is that you can have plans and outlines ahead of November, but no writing until the first of the month.  The goal is to get to 50,000 words by the end of the month.  If you do that, you are a winner and can get a certificate. It’s just for fun and personal motivation.

Now, I’m a writer and that means that there isn’t just one month of the year for writing. I’m always writing. Almost every day.  So why should I do NaNo?  Basically, it can be a nice kick in the pants to get moving on a project.  It gives me something to get excited about, and it also is great for the camaraderie. You connect with people around the world who are doing the same crazy thing.  There are also lots of local groups, so you can meet up in person with others in your area who are participating.

NaNo, I think, was designed for the people who say they want to write a book but never manage to get around to it.  That isn’t me.  I completed books before I started doing NaNo.  I am highly motivated to write.  NaNo also emphasizes plotting by “pantsing,” which is to say that you get a premise and just go with it and see what happens without outlining.  The founder wrote a book called No Plot? No Problem!

That method does not work for me at all.  I’ve only done NaNo twice. The first time I was rewriting a book that I’d finished already so it wasn’t really following the rules.  I didn’t look at any of my notes or previous work and rewrote the entire thing without referencing anything other than my own thoughts.  It turned out very different, so it was a valuable exercise.

The next year I decided to try this pantsing thing (writing “by the seat of your pants”).  It was a disaster.  I hated it.  I got about seven pages written and then got so stuck that I stopped writing for almost a year.

This year I’m going for it again.  I have a story that’s been bouncing around my head for twelve years and I tried to write it once before, but my skills as a writer were not strong enough.  I’m ready to try again.  I’ve created an outline and I’m ready to write 50,000 words of this book this month.  In fact, that just feels a little low to me. I want this to really be a challenge.  So, my goal is going to be to write 80,000 words and finish a draft of my science fiction romance.

I figured I would keep you up to date on my progress here. Come back tomorrow for the description of the story…

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